Genesis
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Even in the Mirror Universe, monsters are made, not born. The man who will one day be General Malcolm Reed, the Head MACO and Chief of Imperial Security, was once a kind young boy - until the day that changed everything... and would eventually lead to to 'Manhunt'.
1. Chapter 1

Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.

**Author's Note: This story is not graphic, but it contains references to child abuse, violence and non-con. If this type of material offends you, please do not read it.**

* * *

A magpie chattering nearby is the first indication I have that I'm completely alone.

I don't move. I can't.

Minutes pass, and the magpie flits down onto the turf a few metres away. Its head turns, so it can eye me beadily. The remains of my sandwich lie discarded on the grass – that's what's attracting it.

I still don't move. I still can't.

Emboldened by my silence and stillness, the magpie hops closer to the sandwich and begins tearing at it. I shudder, and shut my eyes.

The afternoon advances. Soon it's time for roll-call, and then for tea. I'm not hungry. I can't imagine ever being hungry again.

It's long after tea-time when the voices start calling. The early spring evening has started closing in, and the sky beyond the bare trees overhead is pale, luminous green.

'_Don't you fuckin' dare tell anyone, Reedie. You know what'll happen if you do.'_

I didn't dare even try to speak. I just nodded, dumbly.

I have to go in. I can't just lie here till eventually I'm found, even if it would take till morning before the search got this far and at a guess I'd have frozen to death by then. Even though it's March, winter hasn't forgotten us, and in the mornings after cloudless nights the grass outside is white and crackling with rime.

I have to go in. I have to lie. I have to take my punishment for 'forgetting the time', and somehow I have to go on being alive among my schoolfellows.

Somehow.

'_You're not going to _send_ it–?'_

'_I already did! Who gives a shit about him anyway?'_

_Gasps. Nervous laughter. Somebody cursed. A few pairs of feet started edging away._

'_David, for fuck's sake–!'_

_Someone's nerve broke. The earth transmitted the impacts of running feet – one pair. The rest hovered and shifted, the cold realisation starting to break through the excitement._

_The phone began to ping the 'received' confirmations. Dozens of them._

_He crouched down again. His hand was hard on my shoulder, where every muscle was already on fire from the struggling I'd done. In vain. Till there wasn't any point in struggling any more, and the only jerking was reaction from the pain, though they still held me down, just in case._

'_Don't you fuckin' dare tell anyone, Reedie. You know what'll happen if you do.'_

I know. And so it's imperative for me to get back to my feet, to get my clothing back into some kind of order, and to walk back to the school. To walk properly, moreover, though I've no idea how on earth I'm going to do it. My heart thuds with terror at the bare idea of moving, waking the awful pain that has finally subsided into a dull, grinding throb at the base of my body.

I'm six years old – well, six and a bit. Up till today, things that grown-ups do to each other's bodies has been mostly a mystery and wholly irrelevant, though obviously I know that boys and girls are different; I have a sister, and now and again I've caught glimpses of her without any knickers on, so that doesn't worry me at all. In the playground you get the older boys hinting that they know things, and sometimes they tell, if they feel like it; Christopher says it's because they like feeling clever, knowing things we don't. So I sort of get the idea about grown-ups and where babies come from, though to start with I didn't believe a word of it because that was just _disgusting_, and Mother and Father would _never _have done anything like that.

But none of the boys ever said anything about what has happened to me today. This is outside my universe.

Of course I knew from the start that David Sallis didn't like me. I don't know why. He just picked on me and called me names – 'Runty', or 'Reed the Weed'. And there were other boys – a gang of them, all twice as old as me – and they picked up on it, and I learned very quickly that at playtime I had to run and hide, or find a teacher and stay where they could see me. I could keep quiet about the bruises and cuts, but then they started to pull my uniform about and break my PADDs, and that got me into trouble. The teachers told Mother and Father I was careless with my things.

Mother and Father are coming to the school the day after tomorrow. I've been hoping that nothing will be said this time about my carelessness, because I've got very good at running and hiding, and the one time I wasn't quite quick enough, Christopher managed to borrow a needle and thread from his sister's sewing-box, and I managed to work out how to sew the arm back on my blazer so it hardly showed at all, unless you looked _very _hard.

It was because my parents are coming that I went out at lunchtime. Strictly speaking we're not allowed to, and normally I'm very good at doing what I'm told, but when we went out on a nature walk last week I saw the anemones among the trees and recognised them – they grow in the garden at home. Maddie calls them 'windflowers', which I think is quite a pretty name. I'm not allowed to pick any of the flowers at home, but I thought Mother would like it if I picked some of these for her; nobody will miss them and she must like them or she wouldn't have them in the garden, would she?

There's a wall around the school grounds, but it's very old, and here and there it's got broken places where you can get through, if you're small and determined. I grabbed a sandwich instead of having a proper lunch, though normally I try to eat lots of healthy food because I want to grow – I'm the littlest boy in my class, which is why I got called Runty. And I thought that if I was quick, I could eat my sandwich out here in the peace among the trees, and pick some flowers for Mother, and be back in school before anyone even noticed I was missing. I have a clean yoghurt pot in my locker that I keep anything small in that I don't want to mislay, and I could put some water in it so they'd last till I could give them to her.

There are flowers in front of me now. Beautiful white flowers, windflowers in the grass, but they're crushed and bruised, unfit to give to anybody; and there's earth packed under my fingernails where I clawed at it.

I have to move.

I grope a handkerchief out of my pocket and wipe my eyes and nose as best I can. I tried not to cry, I tried very hard, because _Reeds don't cry_, but after a while I couldn't help it. I looked at the windflowers and tried to think about Mother but then I couldn't see them any more and all I could think about was the pain.

The sky overhead is darker. Shadows are gathering among the trees. I've never been outside alone at night in my life, and I'm frightened. If I stay here I will get colder and colder and colder, and then I'll die.

Before today, I might have added 'and bad things will get me', but it's too late for that; they already did.

Father has a cabinet in his study at home. It has a glass front in the top of it, so that you can see the guns inside it. They are old, and beautiful, and sometimes he lets me handle them. He says that when I'm old enough he'll teach me how to shoot, because that will be a good thing to know when I'm an officer on one of the Empire's warships.

He doesn't worry about me handling the guns, because the ammunition is safely locked away. But he doesn't know that once I found the drawers of the cabinet unlocked, and opened one of them hoping to see the boxes of ammunition – not that I would have tried to put any in a gun, because that would be a very naughty thing to do, and dangerous, but just because I wanted to know if that was where they were.

There were no boxes of ammunition. Instead there was a book – a very old book. I like books, and I knew at once that this must be a very special book, to be locked away so safely. I carried it very carefully to the table and opened it, and started looking at the pictures, but I didn't look for long; the pictures in it frightened me, and I'd only turned over a few pages before I slammed it shut again and ran back to the drawer to put it away. And I never, ever told anyone that I'd opened the drawer or seen the book, but the things I'd seen couldn't be unseen.

The one that stayed with me most vividly was of a man tied to a post while another man cut him with knives. There were cuts all over his body, bleeding, but he was still alive; you could see his mouth open.

And now all I can see in my mind's eye, all I've been able to see since the fear and the pain started, is the picture of David Sallis tied to a post with his mouth open and cuts all over his body. I think Father would do that to him, if he knew, but Father must _never_ know that I was disobedient and left the school grounds. He must never, _ever_ know that I was so wicked, or that such a terrible thing has happened to me.

I have to move.

I brace myself, and grit my teeth.

_Reeds don't cry, Reeds don't cry. _I crush the handkerchief over my mouth to stop the whimpers of terror and pain as the movement feels like something inside me is tearing. I have to be brave, I have to pretend I'm a big boy and can deal with this.

After a minute I somehow get myself to my feet.

It's got so dark while I've lain here that it takes me a while to find where my trousers are – they must have been tossed away when someone dragged them off me. As best I can tell they aren't torn, but when with shaking hands I go to pull them back on, I realise with horror that there's blood running down my legs. If that gets on my trousers, someone will see – someone will _know_–_!_

_Lots of people already know._

But grown-ups don't. Grown-ups must _not _know. _Ever._

My handkerchief. I wipe the blood away, trying not to cry at how much of it there is.

But though I keep wiping, more keeps sliding down. Soon my handkerchief is saturated, and I don't have another.

Think – _think!_

Just as I'm about to despair, leaning on the nearest tree because I'm so light-headed with panic I _can't _think, I realise that my palm is resting against a patch of moss. There's plenty of it available, and it's soft and spongy.

Realising what I have to do next is enough to make my brain swim. But I have to do it. I have to get into school somehow, without anyone finding out.

I pull off as much moss as I can find on the tree and put it ready, wedged in the crook of a low branch I can reach easily. There are broken branches strewn around after the winter gales, and scattered twigs of all sizes. I pick one up that will fit between my jaws, and bite down on it, and then I grab a handful of moss.

And then I start doing what has to be done.


	2. Chapter 2

"_Here! Malcolm, wake up!"_

Christopher doesn't know that I haven't been asleep. That I couldn't possibly sleep. That I've been lying here living through what happened to me, over and over again, sweating and shuddering in the dark as memory after memory rolls over me.

I open my eyes and see him standing beside my bed in his pyjamas, with a shielded torch in one hand. He has a piece of cake on a plate in the other, and he's looking around nervously in case Daniel or Vihaan wake up. I don't think they will, because they both sleep really heavily, but he must have waited a long time, just to be sure.

Maybe it was my imagination that they stayed awake longer than usual, and I'm sure I heard the rustle of notes being passed between beds. At one point I caught Vihaan staring at me like he'd never seen me before, though he looked away really quickly when he saw me looking back at him.

I got sent straight to bed without any supper, but that's the last thing I'm worried about right now. I don't even want to think about eating, because some time over the last couple of hours it occurred to me that sooner or later something is going to happen that it makes me sick just to think about, and eating will make it happen again.

"Thank you," I whisper with difficulty. "Can you ... can you put it in my locker, for later?"

I can't imagine there being a 'later', ever. But I cling to the hope that maybe tomorrow the pain will be a bit easier to bear, and I don't move much. Ever since I've crept into bed I've mostly just lain here like a block of wood, with my teeth clenched so not a single sound will escape.

He looks around again, and carefully eases the door of my bedside locker open.

Unfortunately, the plate dislodges something that I'd hoped was accumulating tidily out of view at the back. He turns back to me with a lump of tissues in his hand, and in the torchlight the stains on it look black and his face looks perfectly white. Under his fringe of blond hair his eyes are round with fear.

I can't get out of bed, but I'm still bleeding. I daren't mark the sheet underneath me, so I stole two rolls of toilet paper out of the bathroom and have been using them ever since.

"Malcolm–!"

"Ssh!" I wave a frantic hand. He's almost shouted aloud in his fright.

We both freeze like hunted animals till we hear the other two boys' steady breathing continue.

"Malcolm, what happened to you?" he whispers. "You're hurt!"

If he wasn't one of the most despised boys in the school he'd already know. His father's a Reverend, and I've heard talk that it's only a matter of time before religion gets banned. When that happens, the talk says anyone who refuses to give it up will be guilty of 'treason against the Empire', and that makes them _Bad_ people. I don't know how much of this Christopher knows or senses, but he's even thinner than I am, and nervous all the time. I suppose I would be too, if I had a father who might be accused of being Bad.

He believes in God, too, but God wasn't listening this morning. I know, because I begged and begged Him to help me and He didn't.

_It_ was already doing the rounds by the time I was marched out of the Head's office. Even with my head down, my eyes on the floor, I caught the whispers, the sniggers along the corridor.

"_Nothing _happened," I hiss as fiercely as I dare. "You mustn't tell anyone! Promise!"

He looks down at the tissues in his hand. I think for a dreadful minute he's going to cry. "But are you going to be all right? You're ... you're not going to _die _are you?"

The fear that's been sitting in my tummy like a stone rushes up and into my throat, so hard I can barely breathe. "Of course I'm not," I say stoutly, lying to both of us because I can't even _imagine_ that I'm going to die because I wanted to pick anemones for Mother. "It'll ... it'll be better in the morning."

He shifts from one foot to the other. The bare floor's cold. "Cross your heart?" he mumbles.

I don't know what he means by this, so he shows me, and tells me that if you do this and you're not telling the truth you'll go to hell.

Actually I've never been really sure what hell is, but since lunchtime I've a much better idea. And I don't want to go back there, not _ever_, so I pretend to do it but don't actually touch my chest, hoping that means that if I'm not actually better in the morning then it won't count. Anyway he looks relieved, and after asking if I want a drink or anything (I'm very thirsty, but I know that if he gets spotted going out of the room he'll be in trouble, so I refuse), he pads back to bed.

And I grope under my pillow for the nearest roll of toilet paper, which is already a lot smaller than it was, and hope desperately I won't have to use the second before the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

I spend a long time in the toilet this morning – so long that the prefect in charge of getting us all ready to go down to breakfast puts me on report for dawdling. I tried to flush all the soiled paper away at once and it blocked the loo, and then I drank a lot of water from the tap trying make myself feel less thirsty, and then I had to get dressed making sure none of the other boys saw me from the back, just in case, so that took longer than usual as well.

I take my usual place in Hall, but though I drink my fruit juice and some milk, I don't eat anything. I say I'm not feeling very well, and the prefect just grunts crossly as if he thinks I'm pretending, just to get sympathy.

The pain hasn't gone away. And actually, even apart from that I don't feel well at all. I don't want to eat, I don't even feel hungry, though I'm thirstier than ever. I feel cold all over and every now and then I feel dizzy.

And people are looking at me.

And whispering.

And there's a lot of laughing going on, especially among the nastier boys. Though some of the girls look a bit sorry for me, so it's not long before I stop looking around at all and just sit staring at my plate, which is blindingly bright white and seems to be getting closer and then further away and then closer again, which is very odd but not something I seem to be able to worry about as much as I suspect I ought to.

Sitting through Morning Assembly afterwards is agony; the children in the Lower School have to sit on the floor. By now it feels as if the whole bottom half of my body is melting, and I have to sit cross-legged, perfectly still and upright, and look as if I'm paying attention to what the Head Teacher says.

I don't hear a word he says, actually. I'm too busy holding in the screams that are crowding in the back of my throat, blinking away the tears that are perpetually gathering on the edge of my lashes but _must not_ fall. Because the thing that I've been dreading wants to happen, and I don't know how I can stop it or bear it. I crossed my heart that I wasn't going to die, but I'm terrified that the pain this time is going to be so bad that I won't be able to bear it and maybe I _will _die, because no matter how slow and gentle I try to be I'm already hurting so much down there that I know it's going to make everything a hundred times worse.

But I have to go. I have no choice.

When Assembly ends I'm slow getting up. Some of this is deliberate, but mostly it's because I have to be so careful breathing. But I get what I wanted: when the form files out of Hall, I'm the last in the line.

The corridors are always a bit chaotic, with the various forms hurrying to their first classes, so I don't have any problems slipping away unseen. I walk as fast as I can without running, heading for a small pair of toilets tucked away down a side-passage. I've used them before, and there's hardly ever anyone in there.

Luck is with me. There's no-one inside, and with my tummy already somersaulting I rush into the cubicle.

For a few minutes, I think I really _am _going to die. I don't know how anyone could bear this much pain without it killing them. Fortunately the room's still empty and the door's closed so I can get a little relief from not having to keep completely quiet, though I daren't make a lot of noise even so in case someone passes outside and hears me.

When ... it's over ... I grab handfuls of toilet paper. It comes away feeling disgustingly wet and heavy. I don't look, just keep grabbing and wiping, hoping it will stop, but it doesn't.

I have to get to class. My form tutor Mr Fletcher doesn't like people being late for class, and I'm already in trouble for taking too long to get ready this morning.

I grab more paper and wad it up, just as I did when I got dressed this morning. I've put two pairs of underpants on so I wedge as much as I can inside them. I'll keep my blazer on so no-one will be able to see the bulge underneath them – we're allowed to, if we feel cold, so that's all right.

I pull my trousers up and fasten them. My fingers don't seem to be working very well and I'm cold and shaking. I don't look into the bowl before I flush the toilet; I don't dare, but I can smell blood.

Lots of blood.

After I've washed my hands and dried them I make the mistake of looking into the mirror. My skin's usually quite pale, but now it looks the colour of a peeled apple. My lips are blue, my eyes huge and stark with fear as I take in the awful sight of my reflection.

_Get to class. _I can get to class and sit down. If I can only do that I'll manage somehow.

Everyone has got into their appointed classrooms by now. The bright corridors are empty and echoing as I stagger down them. Nothing around me looks quite right any more, and there's a funny buzzing sound in my ears; and to make things worse, my legs aren't working very well, and it seems to take an astonishing length of time for me to weave drunkenly to the end of 'A' Block where our form room is.

But finally I get there. I can just about hold myself up while I fumble miserably with the door handle, making so much noise struggling with it that I half expect Mr. Fletcher to jerk it open and stand there glaring down at me.

He probably does hear, but when I finally manage to work the latch and heave the door open with what feels like the last of my strength he's like everyone else in the class – waiting for me to crawl in and make my excuses. I know from his face as I look across at it that he's shocked at me for being late, and arriving after all this time means he'll have to put me on report too; and tomorrow evening I'll be in the Head's office again and Mother and Father will be there too, and hearing what a dreadful little boy I am.

_Reeds don't cry. Reeds don't cry. _"I – I'm sorry, sir," I mutter, holding on to the door handle as the world starts swaying around me.

My mouth can't remember how to say the rest of it, though I see his face change and he stands up at his desk, very fast. Everything goes very blurred and the buzzing in my ears gets louder and louder, and then I can't hold on to the door handle any more and the floor comes up and hits me and a girl starts screaming and then another starts and there's so much screaming and shouting, but I can hardly hear it for the buzzing which is deafening me now, and the last thing I see is Mr Fletcher bending over me and roaring _"Ring for an ambulance!"_


	4. Chapter 4

Voices are whispering close by.

I'm not really awake yet. I feel quiet and comfortable, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to wake up, so I just lie there with my eyes shut, not thinking about anything. Grown-ups always talk a lot, and most of it isn't worth listening to, so I tend to tune them out a lot of the time unless they're talking about something interesting.

"_...Of course I realise it!" _Heavy breathing. He's trying to keep hold of his temper. "But there's no need for us to panic. If we can persuade him to keep quiet..."

"..._Quiet?_ This was a _crime! _He damn near died in my classroom!"

"Keep your bloody voice down! If this gets out we'll have parents taking their kids out in droves! They'll close the school!"

"We've all just got to keep our heads!" This from a voice that, unlike the others, is unfamiliar. "Look. He's having the best possible care. This is a top hospital, you don't get better treatment anywhere, and if we deal with this properly the school won't even see the bill, right?"

"By which I take it you mean that your little bastard walks away scot-free, don't you?"

"My _little bastard_ wasn't the only one involved, Fletcher. But I'm the only one who has the resources to keep this out of the papers – unless you'd _prefer_ the parents finding out what _really _happened to him, by which time the news-channels will be having a field-day with it.

"You want justice? You can have it. And this kid will have his face splashed all over the media, along with every gory detail of the trial. It won't just be the school that'll be ruined. You just think of that before you start bellyaching about justice being done."

"We have to keep calm!" The first voice again, so agitated I hardly recognise it for the Head's. "We have to think of the school!"

"The _school?_ Don't we have to think of the welfare of the _Reeds?"_

"We are thinking of their welfare!" The new voice growls it. "Least said, soonest mended. You think they'll want their little brat's face all over the empire's newscasts? You think they'll want the world and his dog knowing he had six pricks up him? You think that at heart they'll even want to know it themselves?"

The Head moans, as if he can hardly bear to hear it said.

"Look." The tone becomes menacing. "I can make this like it never happened. I can make the staff here say whatever I want them to say. I can make them invent something that went wrong with him, that nobody suspected till it was too late. I can keep Mummy and Daddy Reed safe and happy thinking that their little runt just had a medical problem that got sorted. But I'm not doing any of it if my boy's going to be put in a dock.

"That's the deal. I deal with it, or the police deal with it. Make your minds up. You've got one hour." His footsteps walk away, and the door hisses open and shuts again behind him.

The three other grown-ups walk away to the window while I peek through my lashes. I've identified them now: the Head, Mr Colyngbourne, the Deputy Head, Miss Ratcliffe, and Mr Fletcher my form-teacher. Miss Ratcliffe hasn't said much so far, but I'm guessing she was the one Mr Colyngbourne was answering when I woke up. Her hair's normally caught up very neatly in a bun on the back of her head, but now it looks like she's forgotten even to brush it, and this is so surprising I almost open my eyes completely to see it better.

I'm not feeling sleepy any more. Luckily for me, I'm not hurting either. I'm almost too scared to move, but there are clear tubes leading out of bandaged lumps on the backs of my hands to bags hanging up at either side of me, and the air smells of antiseptic. I'm in a hospital, so I didn't die and I won't go to hell (that's a weight off my mind), and the doctors have done something to stop me hurting and, presumably, bleeding. Very cautiously I try to shift my hips a tiny bit and immediately find out that I'm bandaged – there are lots of bandages, and I'm lying on thick wads of soft padding. Everything feels very strange down there and just for now I don't want to know any more about it.

Carefully keeping my breathing very quiet, as though I'm still asleep, I steal another look at the grown-ups. The two men are talking, too low for me to hear, though their voices are fast and angry. Miss Ratcliffe has a PADD in her hand and keeps looking at it and biting her lip. At one point when she tilts it a bit to the side I catch sight of a diagram of a body on it, and I realise that it must be showing what the doctors had to do to make me better.

There's a tiny bit of a pause in the conversation and she uses it to dive in. I don't know why, but I seem able to hear her voice better than theirs, even when she's whispering.

"I can't imagine what it would do to his mother," she says. "For her sake, as much as anything else, don't you think it would be better for no-one to know?"

'No-one to know'?

Don't they think _I_ know?

Don't they realise it's _all over the_ _school?_

I'm usually very well-behaved and polite. But suddenly it's all I can do not to sit up and shout at them, at Miss Ratcliffe and Mr Colyngbourne, and ask what's going to happen to the boys who did this to me, and are they going to be punished _at all?_

"He's awake," says Mr Fletcher suddenly.

I'm pretty sure I didn't move, but then I realise the bio-display above my head must have been flashing a warning.

They exchange grown-up glances and come over to the bed.

"How are you feeling, Malcolm?" asks Mr Colyngbourne kindly.

"Much better, sir," I whisper, while my mind flashes up an image of David Sallis tied to a post and a knife in my hand. Six bare bodies, six posts, one knife.

There _must _be justice for me. They _cannot _be going to let Sallis get away with it. Nor Clifford Howell, nor Harry Rice, nor Phil Hanley, nor Roger Berwick, nor Alan Todd.

This. Can. Not. Happen.

But Mr Colyngbourne puts on his most fatherly expression and pulls up a chair. And he begins to talk to me about how much it would upset Mother and Father if they knew the truth about what happened to me. About how the best and kindest thing a really _brave_ boy could do was to make sure they never found out.

"You won't have to worry about Master Sallis, Malcolm," puts in Miss Ratcliffe helpfully. "His daddy is taking him away from the school."

"Now, your mother and father will be here tomorrow," Mr Colyngbourne resumes, his face very serious. "If you agree to help us, we can give them a harmless explanation for you being ill. That will stop them worrying. But if you won't help us – if we have to report all this to the authorities – then everything will be very difficult and painful. You'll have to go to court and tell everyone what happened to you. It will be in the _newspapers_. On the _television. _And imagine how upset your mother and father will be – having to listen to all the things those bad boys did to you."

I feel a tight knot of utter outrage gathering in my throat. I know what is being done to me and I know why. They don't care about Mother and Father, and they certainly don't care about me. They care about the school, and about the money it will lose if parents find out what happened there and take their own children away.

But the terrible thing is that they are telling the truth; I look at Mr Fletcher and his expression confirms it. He hates it, but it's true. My whole soul shrinks away from having to stand up in a court and tell sympathetic strangers about that terrible half-hour among the windflowers. From having the details spread abroad, from having Mother and Father have to listen to it all. From having all the family know, from having strangers in supermarkets recognise me and whisper behind their hands: _'Isn't that the little boy who...?'_

There are feelings inside me that I hardly have a name for. That I hardly know how to deal with. But for all that I'm not even seven yet, still I know instinctively that this choice that's no choice will change me terribly. Because if the grown-ups who are supposed to protect me won't do it, then I will. I won't always be six, and I won't always be helpless.

In biology class last week we were taught about caterpillars. How after they get old enough and big enough, they turn into _cris-a-lis-es_ and then after a while the _cris-a-lis_ breaks open and a beautiful butterfly crawls out of it.

I look from one of the teachers' faces to the next. Mr Colyngbourne looks like one of the saints in Christopher's _miss-al_ that he showed me once, though he keeps it very carefully hidden.

Miss Ratcliffe is clutching the PADD anxiously; if the school closes she will lose her job. Her face lightens suddenly, and she leans closer. "All of the electronic devices around the school have been confiscated and the data deleted from them," she says confidentially. "Our IT department have designed a virus to find and destroy any material that was sent out from any of those devices. You don't have to worry about that."

I understand about computers. I understand how they work. I am very bright for my age about that sort of thing, and I believe her when she promises that the files will be destroyed. But memories are not like computers. I don't suppose there are three people in that school by now who haven't seen that recording – or parts of it at least. Memories can't be erased. And if Mother and Father are not to know, my 'bravery' will mean that I have to go back to Nottingham Old Hall. That I have to live for another eleven years among people who know exactly what happened to me, even if they've been threatened to within an inch of their lives with what will happen to them if they ever breathe a word about it to anyone.

Last of all I look at Mr Fletcher. He has always been very strict, but I trust him. I want him to say something that will help me out of the trap that's closing in on me.

He clears his throat. "You have the choice, Malcolm," he tells me quietly. "Whatever you want to do, I will support you."

This is not what he was supposed to say. I know from the looks he gets from the Head and Deputy Head that if I take the chance he has given me, if I accept his help and drag the school through the courts and get justice for myself, he will not have a job any more. And a strange, adult knowledge fills me that if Mr Sallis's son goes to prison, Mr Fletcher will probably not live to be happy about it.

Up to now, I have been a caterpillar. But today I feel the threads of powerlessness binding around me, closer and closer, tighter and tighter, and I know that I _have_ no choice.

I lie back on the bed. I stare at the ceiling, feeling the threads harden, wrapping me up like a _cris-a-lis._

I will obey. I will lie. I will co-operate. But inside the cris-a-lis something else will be growing, watching the pictures on the inside of the cocoon. Pictures of bodies tied to posts, leaking blood – and screaming.

It will take a long time. I'm only six, after all. But I won't always be six.

A shudder that's more than physical runs through me as I settle into utter stillness. I feel like the caterpillar, accepting fate.

Time will pass. I don't know how much time. Probably much longer than a real caterpillar has to wait, but I will wait. However long, I'll wait. And I already know that whatever hatches out of the cris-a-lis will be something much, much worse than a butterfly.

"No, Mr. Colyngbourne," I say towards the ceiling. My voice already sounds lifeless, as though everything that I ever was or might have been is draining away and can never be recovered. "I don't want Mother and Father hurt."

He draws a long slow breath of relief. I don't imagine he has any idea of the depth of the well of utter hatred that opens in me at the sound of it. I feel myself falling into it, falling as if I'm tumbling through outer space and all the stars have vanished.

"Malcolm, are you – sure?" asks Mr Fletcher gently. There are shadows in his voice that I can't allow myself to hear. I don't want his sadness, I don't need his pity, and his guilt is more than I can bear as the last of my childhood slips away from me.

"Yes."

Miss Ratcliffe pats my arm. "We'll take care of everything for you." Someday, far in the future, she will burn to death for that pat. And Mr Colyngbourne too will discover what hell feels like before he actually gets there.

Mr Fletcher?

He is what grown-ups ought to be, but powerless, just like I am. The bad people have all the power. The good people get trampled underfoot. I have learned that now, and I won't forget it.

They leave the room quietly.

It's done now, all done. The threads are solidifying fast. In the last cold light from the window, I can almost feel the hard black shine of thecris-a-lis starting to form.

And thus, Fate turns.

**The End.**


	5. The Epilogue

"We are most honoured to welcome an ex-pupil of the School – a young man who has achieved great things in the service of the Empire, and stands as an example for all our present pupils to follow!"

Mr Colyngbourne beams around the assembly, and leads the staff and prefects in a round of applause. Our honoured guest smiles deprecatingly. He's a handsome chap, is Philip Hanley. _Inspector _Philip Hanley, whose rise in the ranks of the tax inspectorate has already been meteoric. He's the charmer who can be depended on to squeeze the last penny from a poverty-stricken smallholder and turn a blind eye to the conglomerate boss evading tax revenue on billions - in return for a slice of the profits, of course.

He doesn't see me, of course. Now that I'm a Sixth-Former and the very devil of a fellow, I can choose where to sit. And I usually sit in the shadows between the pillar and the wall at the far end of the hall, where I can see everyone and watch everything.

It's part of the lead-up to the close for the summer holidays to have inspiring guests. Presumably it's felt that they provide concrete proof of the heights that departing pupils can aspire to if they kiss the right arses.

I somehow thought it would be worse than it is, seeing him again. But eleven years have passed, and hidden in my chrysalis things have changed. I don't see him as twice my weight now. I don't see him as stronger than me. I see him as something quite, quite different.

My transformation isn't complete yet. I'm still a work in progress. But I _will _be complete one day, and if my carefully laid plans come to fruition, today will be the first of six steps towards it.

Back in the day, when I first conceived of myself of a creature in a chrysalis, I had the idea of being some kind of jawed beetle when I emerged – there were some fabulous ones pinned on boards around the biology class. These days, however, my ideas have gone up a few notches. I rather like the idea of being that interesting creature that burst out of somebody's belly in an old film we watched the other day. Something about the dentistry just appealed to me...

I'd imagine that if Mr Fletcher was still here I'd at least have been given the courtesy of being warned in advance – perhaps even given the option of absenting myself on some kind excuse or other. As it is, I learned of it because I hacked into the school's mainframe years ago, and there isn't a damn thing that goes on in here that I don't know about. I eavesdrop on conversations, I copy confidential e-mails. I'm blackmailing half of the staff and most of the governors, and one thing I arranged for was for him to be transferred. Into a nice, cosy, well-paid job where his stupid niceness won't be so utterly wasted, and where he'll be safe from the wrath that is to come.

Colyngbourne, the fool, hasn't a clue. He's sitting on a sunlit leaf while in the shadows all around him the webs are closing in. Miss Ratcliff sits beside him, her smile complacent, her hair immaculate. She's on a nice little earner these days, should get a nice pension when she retires. Or she would do, if she lived long enough.

Which she won't.

Hanley's the guest of honour. He gets to distribute the prizes, hand out the certificates. Strangely enough, mine got lost in transmission yesterday, so I won't be called up to the podium for him to shake my hand and congratulate me on my outstanding academic achievements. Madame Delacroix the school secretary handed the prints to me without a word of protest; I can still remember the way her throat muscles moved beneath my fingers. While I had the chance I put my free hand down her bra and had a bit of fun, and if I hadn't been in a bit of a hurry I'd have pushed my hand up her skirt and had a feel there too.

Did I mention I lost my virginity quite a while ago? It was such fun I've repeated it on quite a few girls since. They must have enjoyed it, for all the whimpering and crying they did. None of them reported me, anyway.

Madame Delacroix sleeps with her door padlocked. Can't imagine why she should do such a thing, but I saw the gleam of it when I climbed the ivy up to her window last night. Unfortunately for me, the window was locked too. Tightly, for all that it was a hot night, and moonless. She wasn't asleep either. When I tapped lightly on the glass her head turned on the pillow, much too fast for someone who'd been in the land of Nod. I ran my tongue up the glass, slowly and lusciously, to show her what she was missing.

(You're wondering about Christopher, aren't you? He disappeared soon after my 'medical emergency', and his missal was gone out of its hiding place too. I don't know whether it was found and reported or his dad got taken by the BII. Once that happens the whole family gets scooped up like tiddlers in a net, so that would have been the end of Christopher.)

So. Prize-giving. A dead bore at the best of times. The certificates mean fuck-all to me, the results are all stored away on the Education Authority's main database and sent out to the universities. I already know where I'm headed, I've more than exceeded their admission criteria and my route to the Royal Naval College is mapped out. My scores in shooting competitions would qualify me for the Olympic team if I could be arsed, but I've got my gaze on far more rewarding targets. One of the Empire's sharpshooters can rise and rise. I'll start off with a lieutenancy on a warship, and then the killing will really start. I'll have the latest weapons handed to me, with _carte blanche_ to fire. I'll make that ship the terror of the seas, and the seas will only be the start of the terror.

And then, when I have power, Phase 2 of the plan can come into effect. Slowly. Stealthily. Surely.

I have patience.

This patience is tested during the day. There's prize-giving, and speeches, and a tour of the school ('It's _so_ much smaller than I remember!'), and blessed peace for a few hours while he bores the staffroom to death, and then dinner where he's the guest of honour, and whatever, whatever. But I'm patient. I've been waiting for eleven years, and I can wait a little longer.

There's a paring of a moon hanging over the trees when I slip silently into the roofspace of the senior girls' dormitory.

I know my way around perfectly well by now. The rooms are air conditioned, and each has a vent in the ceiling. Luckily for me, and very unluckily for some of the girls, these are modern and easy to unscrew and lift – for maintenance, officially, but it comes in exceptionally useful for other purposes, mostly mine.

I've already selected my unwitting co-conspirator. Mithra hasn't the courage of a rabbit even in broad daylight, and she just collapses into a heap of whimpering rags when I land lightly on the floor. Needless to say, she and I are very shortly horizontal, and while I pleasurably ensure that there's plenty of my DNA in place if I should require proof to be produced for my alibi, I whisper in her ear exactly what will happen to her if by any chance she omits to mention the next day that I spent the entire night between her legs ... at her express invitation.

Having taken care of that little matter, I leave her to decide to be a sensible girl, and exit by the window. My gloves will ensure that I leave no fingerprints, and my soft shoes with excellent grip make no sound on the wall that connects this building to the staff annex.

I'm not afraid; on the contrary, I'm keyed up to a pitch of excitement I can't ever remember experiencing before. The explosive pleasure of ejaculating into Mithra seems merely like the overture to a symphony.

There's a skylight at either end of the annex. A screwdriver quietly finds the catch, which has been left not quite secure, though you wouldn't know it from below.

Everything inside is dark and still. I slip silently through the aperture, careful not to let my skin touch at any point, and let myself drop. There are advantages in being small and slim, and clad from head to foot as I am in black clothing, I simply become a shadow among the other shadows.

The accommodation database on the school's computer has told me exactly where I need to go. A visit to the secretary's office some months ago provided me with a copy of the master-card that will open any door in the building, so there's no need for force, no need for anything that will leave the faintest clue to how or who; and my access to the database makes it simplicity itself for me to erase any record of the door being opened.

The door lock flashes green, covered by my hand, and I'm in. A previous visit ensured that the handle moves without a sound, and I'm in the guest suite and within reaching distance of the first step in my transformation.

The wine was flowing freely at the High Table tonight, in honour of such an exalted guest. It's almost a pity that his senses won't be at their brightest and best so he can experience his last few minutes of life to the full, but that's no reason for me to waste all the effort I've put in.

In a mirror on the wall I catch a momentary sight of my own reflection. I like it. Its smile is a row of bared teeth.

Still, Mithra will be waiting eagerly for the second and third courses, and a gentleman never disappoints a lady. She really does have the most beautiful body, supple and slender, with small, perfect breasts and an absolute peach of a bum.

I step to the bed, slipping from my pocket a knife I made in metalwork class without anyone seeing. It's not beautiful, but it's superbly functional. The blade can cut lengthwise slices from a human hair without bending it.

The heat means that Hanley's sleeping under nothing more than a sheet. His face is innocent with sleep. Ruined little people mean nothing to him, the happy bosses fill his offshore accounts and that's what matters.

Not that I'm a saint, by any measure. I don't give a toss about the little people either. I was one once, and look how _that_ turned out.

A saint wouldn't run his hand lightly across a man's mouth and then clamp it shut. Wouldn't give his victim just time to open bulging eyes that meet mine in appalled recognition before driving the blade into the base of his belly, ripping it upward.

My hand smothers the best attempt he can make at a scream. The knife plunges and rips, again and again, while he thrashes and gurgles and sobs, pawing ineffectually at my imprisoning arm; the skin-tight fabric I'm wearing ensures he can get no grip on it or me. He's a fully-grown adult and I'm not quite, but he's soft and already flabby with too many good dinners, living on the fat of the land, while I spend every spare minute in the well-equipped sixth form gymnasium and I don't waste a single second of them. I'm as lean as whipcord and every hard muscle in my body is in play against him. He was dead as soon as I got my hands on him.

It doesn't take half as long as I'd hoped it would before he finally falls still, his jaw dropping open, his bitten tongue dangling from his mouth and his eyes still staring in sightless, horrified astonishment as I cautiously ease my grip. The shock of the initial attack was too strong, my enthusiasm too great; obviously I can't dawdle, but my technique clearly requires more finesse before the next time. It's a learning curve, and next time I'll take more care not to get carried away by my excitement.

As I withdraw the knife, blood trickles from the blade over my hand. Automatically I lick it, and the taste is that of victory, vindication. I lick up the rest, loving the feeling of it in my mouth as the assurance that the days of my helplessness are over.

I slip from the room, closing the door soundlessly. Ten minutes later I'm in the boiler room and everything I've been wearing is in the incinerator, already roaring to heat the water for the morning showers. Without haste I pull on the spare set of clothes I secreted behind it. No fibre on my clothing will match any from the scene of the crime, even if my alibi should be questioned.

Ah. _My alibi_. I smile into the night, stretching luxuriously. Sweet little Mithra. I just know she's aching for me to join her again and resume where we left off. And if by any chance she isn't ... well, as I found out long ago, what you want doesn't matter when you're the prey rather than the predator. And now, _I _am the predator.

And the night belongs to me.


End file.
